Are You Sabotaging Your Relationships?

We’re going to get started with our Big Question of the Day: “What can you do to restore a broken relationship?” We want to hear from you, so leave your response in the comments!

All this month, we’ve been talking about strengthening relationships with friends, family, in school and at work but today we are discussing some of the most common ways that we can mess these relationships up. Whether done intentionally or unintentionally, these are relationship killers. We’ll tell you what they are, why they hurt and how you can avoid them.

Have you ever felt betrayed in a relationship? We all have at one time or another. The hurt it causes at the time can have ripple effects that go far beyond the initial event and can hinder our future relationships, as well.

In every relationship, there are rules, spoken and unspoken, that set the expectations and boundaries for the relationship. Betrayal happens when those rules are broken. In her SWAAY.com article, (https://swaay.com/five-steps-to-overcoming-betrayal-live-with-resilience) Dr. Debi Silber details some of the real harm that can come from experiencing a betrayal in our relationships.

According to Dr. Silber’s own survey, “Over 50% of people who have been betrayed suffer from mental symptoms such as being foggy-headed and overwhelmed. They also experience an inability to focus and concentrate. More than half of those surveyed also struggled emotionally with sadness, anger, depression, rejection, irritability, anxiety, and abandonment. Physical symptoms such as having low energy, fatigue and exhaustion were experienced by over 60%” of their participants, as well.

We know that betrayal hurts people, but what are we doing that crosses those lines? One of the most common ways is through gossip. Whether we’re standing around the water cooler, in the lunch line or seated around the dinner table, gossip is an easy trap to fall into.

Gossip may seem harmless, but it can hurt in ways that we never intended. Even when our gossip isn’t sharing something negative, it still has relational consequences. One article from the University of Southern California explored how gossip in the workplace effects power dynamics in the workplace. (“Passing the word: Toward a model of gossip and power in the workplace,” Nancy B Kurland; Lisa Hope Pelled - Academy of Management. The Academy of Management Review; Apr 2000; 25, 2; ABI/INFORM Global pg. 428)

When we share negative gossip to someone at work, it can create Coercive and Referent power. When the gossiper shares information with the recipient, they may infer that the gossiper will just as easily share their information with others. This may cause them to be more submissive and compliant towards the gossiper in order stay on their good side. Gossiping may also cause the recipient to view you as someone with less moral character as it is commonly viewed as a negative trait. Because of this, people may become less likely to give weight to what the gossiper has to say.

On the other hand, being seen as the one who has all of the information gives the appearance that the gossiper may be in the inner circle at work or in popular group at school. The problem is, the higher your social or business clout grow, the less acceptable it is to be gossiping about those with a lower status than yourself.

The harmful outcomes of negative gossip should be expected, but what about positive gossip? Is it really so bad to share someone else’s good news? According to the article, positive gossip is related to Reward and Expert power. Hearing positive gossip may cause the recipient to infer that the gossiper would possibly share positive gossip about themselves.

This, in turn, could lead to their reputation going up and enhancing their ability to be promoted or be accepted into new social groups. This can give the gossiper undue power over the life outcomes of those they are gossiping about. Similarly, even in sharing positive gossip, the recipient may begin to view the gossiper as the one “in-the-know" about who’s-who and what’s going on. As the old saying goes, “knowledge is power” and this type of power corrupts very quickly.

At the end of the day, we have to remember to value all relationships for the people we share them with and not what we may or may not be able to get out of it. Every person has inherent, intrinsic value and worth. Whether we think they have the ability to advance our social status or professional life, we shouldn’t be focused on what we can get out of people but how we can enhance their lives. Selfishness is the root to all sorts of pain and heartache in our lives. The better we get at loving others, the better all areas of our lives will be.

Remember, we want to hear from you! If you haven’t already, make sure to leave your response to our question of the day; “What can you do to restore a broken relationship?”

Join us this Thursday night at 6:00 PM CT for our monthly podcast! We'll be streaming on our YouTube channel and on our Facebook Page (@askwholehearted). We’ll go even deeper on the non-romantic relationships that we’ve been covering all month long and even sharing some of the responses we’ve had from all of you! We’ll see you Thursday night!